Conquest: One Shot
by WxlfGhoul
Summary: AU where a world where the fall of Voldemort did not bring about the New Beginning that all wizards had hoped for, instead his death had brought about an opportunity for other dark wizards to sink their teeth into the wizarding world. Harry, leader of the rebellion has to find a way to win this war, but how can he do that if he's stuck in his fifth year of Hogwarts? M for language.


**Conquest.**

_A Harry Potter fanfic._

**Chapter One:**

Cold.

The cold that froze the very bones that hid inside our bodies for warmth. The cold that was the only lingering memory of the ghastly creatures that once guarded this fortress.

The sound of the tempered sea crashing with the base of the prism tower, sensing that life was somewhere inside.

As he tried to keep his fingers still long enough to place the last of the captured meat into his mouth the sound of footsteps interrupted his venture into supplying nourishment to himself, albeit it being a small fish he'd been able to catch when he could still stand. He gritted his teeth and looked up, ran his hands through his long greasy brown hair and stared at the figure before him. His captain.

"Haven't you finished eating yet Lieutenant?" The man asked, a small grin on his face. The malice of his desire hidden behind his thick yet short black beard.

The Lieutenant stared into the eyes of his captain, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to stand long enough to put up an argument at the way he had addressed him like he was used to.

The green eyes of the captain noticed the shaking of his lieutenants fingers and frowned "sorry mate, forgot. Expecto patronum!" He called out, whipping his wand in the air. A burst of light temporarily blinding the two; once the light became bearable the familiar form of a stag could be seen. "Don't worry Nev, we're only hiding out here for a few more days. We'll meet back up with the crew soon, alright?" The warmth that the stag radiated seemed to chase the lingering gloom in the cell away long enough for the Lieutenant to finish his meal.

He and his Captain had been hiding out in this decrepit prison. What used to be called Azkaban, for the better part of two weeks. The longing that he felt towards his family was all that drove him. His rage at the way he dealt with the ambush. The reason for the retreat to Azkaban.

"Stop it." He looked up to see his Captain resting against the broken gap of the cell where a door must have been before, he had obviously seen the anger building in his longtime friend "Your gonna get yourself into another state again. There may not be any Dementors here Nev, but this place is still designed to suck every last drop of power a person has in them. I'm trying to use the bare minimum of my magic at the moment. A large enough quantity of magic potential and these wards'll probably come back online and deplete us of all power and any hope of getting out of this place." He said, waving his wand across the gap, his eyes reading results.

The Lieutenant just huffed at the raven haired man turning on his side, the pain ever present. "Want me to take a look at that?" He asked.

He knew it was in good faith, afterall, this was his leader. The Captain of the Pegasus. The man who had lead the war on Lord Voldemort, had met him at battle on several occasions, the Lieutenant himself joining him on the battle field, earning him his title. The Lieutenant was there when the Captain defeated Lord Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts, a battle that the Lieutenant thought would be the worse he'd ever see... of course, he never expected to be in the War of Sin.

The war that still waged on.

Captain Black of the Pegasus, the beacon of light to the wizarding community of Europe. The Order of Sin had roared into power overnight. They had attacked and destroyed Durmstrung Academy and used the castle as their base of operations for a while, building there armies and making their presence known.

Fighting the Order had been the only thing on anyone's mind for just over half a decade. Enough had happened in that time for the mask that covered the face of the wizarding community to fall off to reveal how the structure of the society was barely holding on.

During Voldemort's reign, the Ministry of Magic had been taken over, but Voldemort was intelligent enough to know that once he had conquered, that he'd want to have a system in place to maintain control.

So after the Battle of Hogwarts, (in which half of the school building had been practically blown away, the rest a crumbling ruin) was the place for Voldemort's final stand at the wand of Captain Black, who at the time was only called that by a few close friends. To the world he was known as Harry James Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived.

During the war against the Dark Lord, Azkaban prison was one of the first items on his agenda, recruiting the dementors that worsened the prison and the inmates inside.

Not a soul had entered since.

Except Lieutenant Neville Longbottom of House Longbottom and Captain Harry James Potter-Peverell-Black Lord to House Potter, House Peverell and House Black.

They had been on a scouting an island among the few that stood in the North Sea. They had heard rumour that dementors had been spotted around the area, and the thought of those creatures wandering around unattended did not sit well with the Council of Pegasus.

Captain Black along with his circle of close team mates went on a scouting mission to find the dementors and hopefully negotiate a bargain of some kind with them.

What they weren't expecting was to find a single dementor that was chained up with what Neville could have only described as patronus chains connected to where a heart would be on a human connecting it to the ground, inside of a steel cage.

It was only seconds later that at least fifty men burst from the ground beneath them and began their onslaught.

Luckily the team had reacted just in time, the Lieutenant taking a slice from someone's sliver charm to the ribs (the damage still there), the Ice Queen freezing the few that dared surround her and sending a frenzy of ice shards in the direction of the men that were running towards her.

It was an open field. The skies, black. The earth beneath them like stone. The team only consisted of ten people. A laugh was heard.

"So. The winged beasts decide to finally show up. Took ya long enough, been waiting here for almost a week waiting for you lot to show up! Haha! Doesn't matter. You're all gonna fucking die anyway!" Neville knew from the laughter who it was. It may have changed to sound more ghastly, but it was still the ever familiar voice of Ronald Weasley, the Sin of Greed.

The team continued to fight their attackers. Anger burning away through his body the Captain had aimed his wand at the ground and screamed "Aegis Scruta Vortex" magic had visibly surged throughout their leaders body as his eyes shone a bright emerald green and the rocks, battle debris and other object that wasn't tethered to the ground flew into the air as a protective barrier formed from circular wind that resembled a tornado. "DAPHNE!" He shouted over the sound of spells firing all around them, trying to break the barrier that was draining so much of their captains magic, the ice queen had turned around, her expression emotionless as always.

"Get out of here! Grab everyone and return back to the port key! The phrase is 'Mischief Managed'! I'll hold these off for as long as I can." He turned around, throwing disarming and slicers at the attackers on the outskirts of the barrier, he turned his gaze to see that Daphne had not moved.

"I'm serious. Daphne, I order you to get your ass back to that port key. NOW!" Almost compelled by his magic, Daphne resigned her attempt at denying her captain his wish. She sent out the order for retreat. The Captain could hear the footsteps run toward the back of the tornado barrier.

He heard the call from the Ice Queen to lower the barrier, he gritted his teeth, and with a push of reluctance, he cancelled the wind barrier, his magic crying out in pain at the way he had exerted himself. Still not yet comfortable with using powerful spells again just yet.

"Avada kedavra!" The familiar green lighting shot its way towards the captain his emerald eyes reflecting the wickedness of the spell

"Get down you fuckwit!" The next thing he knew he was on the ground facing his Lieutenant, who was bleeding out of a swollen left eye. Most probably now lost.

The Captain regained his composure and nodded to the man that was his right hand. The two had continued to fight back against the soldiers, but more began to arrive by apparition. Greed sitting on a rock behind all of the fighting men picking his teeth with the bone of one of the men who had his arm cut off by Cho Chang right at the beginning of the fight.

One thing led to another, and the Captain managed to grab his Lieutenant and get off of the island, unfortunately, in the state that he was in, he was unable to travel very far. They had found themselves on a small island that the two could just about stand on together that faced the now empty Azkaban prison.

Which is where they've held residence.

Some thought that this is where Harry Potter and his closest friends deserved to go at one point after the war. Unfortunately for the government a new war broke out. They needed the 'war criminal' to help them fight against the new legion of dark lords.

Wizards.

Neville noticed as his Captain began leaving the cell. He sighed, shoved the fish down his throat and willed himself to stand, several splashing sounds echoing throughout the small cell. "Fuck it." He winced under his breath.

Neville began to hobble after his captain.

"I know you know I'm following you, so the least you can fucking do is slow down." Neville tried to shout out to the long haired warrior.

The Captain turned to look at Neville, almost as if considering him for a moment "sit down Nev. I don't have enough energy in me at the moment to heal you. I won't be able to stop you from dying if you push yourself too much. We both know Hannah will have my head if I somehow return without you." The captain said, the truth behind his words being ever present in Neville's mind.

He slumped against the wall, peering up to meet the emeralds that struck fear in so many "Harry... d'you ever look back.. at our Hogwarts days.. n just.. wish we could go back?" Neville asked, searching for an answer amongst the river of pain that was contained within his Captain.

He shrugged his shoulders and crouched down, keeping level with his Lieutenant, using his wand to poke at some debris on the cobbled ground "honestly Nev? I don't know... I like to think that those years... we used them to the best that we could, y'know? They were innocent, we were just teenagers before the war with Voldemort broke out. I mean. I wish we had picked up on Ron a little quicker, but we were too pre-occupied. Y'know, those were the years we all started to grow into who we were meant to be... you and Luna started getting closer, I started dating-" Neville laughed at that

"Only you can find a way to date two girls at once and not have it seem weird and gross to the world" Neville said with a smile

"Huh... well... not everyone thought like that, Ron did get pretty angry at finding out me and Hermione were together..." Harry trailer off

"Yeah, but don't forget how quickly he moved on, him and Lavender went at it like dogs in heat some nights. Think he forgot we shared a room." Neville tried to reassure his longest friend

"Yeah, that's true. I guess I feel like I'm to blame for it all, y'know? I mean... I just wish I had seen the signs back then." He repeated.

They remained there. The captain poking at the ground with his wand, and Neville, holding his ribs, both dreaming of a time that none of the pain they had endured was thought possible.

"Have you spoken to either of the girls since-" The captain shook his head

"Nope. They're still holding out that I'll... 'come to my senses'... I mean... you understand why I had to end things with them... right?" The captain asked, his gaze remaining on the ground

Neville just chuckled "the most fearsome wizard to fight for the good guys and he's scared of telling some girls how feels? Wow... guess we really are fucked." He joked

The captain looked up smiling "how's Hannah been coping with the pregnancy?" The captain asked, the ghost of a smile on his face.

Neville allowed himself to fully slump the the ground "yeah.. Han's doing great... except when she knows that I have to leave on a mission, or a meeting, or I've got to train or.. you know the drill. She's scared that one day I'm not gonna go back and that she'll have to raise a child knowing that I'm dead and it'll remind her of me every single day... it's hard Cap... this life is hard." Neville responded truthfully.

Silence blanketed the two of them, a silence of comfort and familiarity. The captain sat back, a shiver running through his body, Neville laughed "its good to see that you can still feel the cold!"

The captain smirked at Neville's remark and aimed his wand at the cobbles, wordlessly casting a warming charm, but to no avail "guess I don't have enough energy." He spoke softly.

Neville looked worryingly towards his friend "look, it could just be some kind of ward or spell imbued into the foundations of the place?" He tried to reassure, but his captain just scratched his head.

"Nah. I knew I was pushing it with the Haze Barrier, then the ravelling all that distance... I probably over exerted myself. God knows I don't have the same kind of power as I used to." The captain stated, looking mindlessly into one of the cells next to them.

They were sitting in the hallways to the sixth floor of the prison, right in between two cells. One looked as though it had its door blown to pieces to get inside, whereas the other one had a bent door with scratch marks all over it. The ex-home of a werewolf most likely.

Something had occurred to Neville "Harry... what were you following?" He asked, remembering that although his captain couldn't use any strong magic, he was following something with his wand.

This seemed to have brought him out of his daze, he looked up at Neville, his eyes rising "Oh!" He stood up, offering his hand to Neville, who rolled his eyes and joined his captain. "I noticed a magic trace.. I'm not sure from who but it was either powerful enough to remain here for months later, or they had passed through here recently." Neville's eyes widened.

The two began to follow the trail that Harry's own elder wood and thestral hair wand had picked up. Whilst assisting Neville, the two travelled down the stair case of the prison block, all the way to the base. It was peculiar though "the wand's saying that the trail keeps going down..." The captain stated, he looked around and pulled out his holly and Phoenix feather wand from the holster on his ankle, waving it in the air, he propped Neville against the wall and travelled around the entire corridor to the bottom floor.

He was out of sight from Neville when he heard his name being called. The man rolled his eyes as he travelled across the blackened cobbles to find his leader.

He turned a corner and stood still in his tracks, before him was his captain, one of his eyes perfectly normal, the other had the whites inverted to black, and his signature green were now a bright red holding open some cobbles stone that looked as though they made a door "Neville, this is actually incredibly difficult to manage, so if you hobble on in that'd be great" He said through gritted teeth.

Neville mentally collected himself, not used to seeing this side to his captain just yet and almost literally crawled into the hole in the wall, his Captain soon following, the sound of cobbles clicking together like locks echoing throughout the dark empty space that now befell them.

"Lumos!" They both had shouted together, both of their wands igniting, shedding some light on the room, revealing itself to be a long set of winding stairs that led down. Harry placed his own makeshift elder wand into his ankle holster, opting to use his Phoenix feather one due to requiring less magical energy to use.

They travelled down the winding stairs, for what felt like hours, every couple of steps a splosh on the steps from blood that seeped out of Neville's cut echoing throughout the stair well.

"How much... l-longer?" Neville asked his Captain between gasped. They had opted into taking a break, the strain just about bearable for both the Lieutenant and the Captain, both, although different kinds of extremities, were still wounded from their encounter weeks before.

"Not much longer now Nev. Whatever is down there... I'm not sure how to explain it to you... but it feels like... a void." He tried to explain

"What d'you fucking mean, a void, how can you feel a void?"

"I mean... not much further and I'll feel... nothing. As if everything just stops when we get down there." He iterated.

They waited until they both felt better and rose from the steps they rested upon and continued on their journey, their wands helping to light the way and ensuring they don't miss a step.

~bok~

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. They took a few steps away from the stairs, from what little they could see from the light their wands were emitting, they knew that they were in a large chamber built from the blackest of black bricks, the Captain swished his wand, a red wave travelling through the room, revealing its shape and that there were no wards or boobytraps there.

They looked around the room, noticing that instead of cobbles furnishing the floor it was instead planks of wood, the walls had refined stones as its structure, and at the far end of the chamber, there was a chair with a cloaked figure sitting upon it.

The two assumed battle positions, despite their conditions they were not going to die today.

They crept forward, step by step. 'How could someone be alive? Down here? How long have they been here' was the thoughts running through the mind of Neville

'The amount of magical potential they must store in order to sustain themselves without any nutrition down here... unless, they had been trace i felt in the prison upstairs. They can move and they're powerful' the Captain thought before summoning his other wand from its holster, ensuring maximum coverage.

"Calm boys." They froze in their steps. The figure raised its hooded head, small purple eyes peering out from underneath a hood at them. "I won't harm you." The figure must have noticed their hesitation "I hereby declare that I wish to deal any harm to any guests to this chamber at this given time, so mote it be." A soft purple hue covered the outline of the figure for a few moments before it faded away.

The two seasoned soldiers lowered their wands only slightly, they knew from experience that there were ways that someone could overcome an oath.

"Please take a seat. It does get awfully tiring looking up all the time." As if the words breathed life into the world, two wooden chairs erected from the ground, perfectly able to fit the captains lean figure and Neville's bulky form. "Questions, I assume?" The figure asked, his voice clearly masculine.

There was silence.

"For gods sake, I'm actually starting to get tired of your two already. You come face to face with Death and you don't even want to ask him any questions?!" The figure shouted at the two, the purple of his eyes intensifying for a moment.

They didn't shudder.

"Death?" Neville asked. Knowing the routine. He'd ask the questions, the Captain crafts the conclusion and they execute accordingly.

"Yes. Death. The grim reaper. Satan. The devil... the.. black cloth... with the... dagger... thing... oh wait that's the reaper thing, isn't it? Damn, I always muck that bit up. Yes. I'm Death. Cool, right?" The figure asked

There was silence.

Death locked eyes with the two of them for a moment. Time seemingly frozen around them.

~CLAP~

Both were bought out of their defensive mindsets by the sound from Death.

"You two might be fun. Mister Potter, may I see that wand of yours" He asked pointing towards the Elderwood and Thestral hair wand he was holding in his left hand.

There was no movement.

"Oh! Right, sorry, been an age since I've interacted properly with wizards. What was it? Oh yes! Lord Harry James Potter-Peverell-Black, may you grant me the honour in inspecting the wand that so similarly resembles my own?" Death stated, an air of noble origins coming from the cloaked figure.

There was no movement.

Death sighed "fine." He put his hand out and the wand flew from the captains possession to Deaths, the two jumped from their seats in an instant, Death waved his hand down and the two fell back into their chairs, the frame work twisting slightly to tie their legs and arms to it.

"I don't ask twice." He said before waving a hand over the wand "incredible. Marvellous. Ha!" The highpitch outburst from the figure made the two jump "you have almost successfully replicated my wand... albeit this one seems to be more magically draining than what mine would be on the beholder. Hmmm... I see the work of Olivander and... others here. Ah! I see, you probably didn't want any one person to know all the ingredients and steps into making the wand. Smart." He said peering up at the captain.

"I needed a wand strong enough to defeat Voldemort." The captain replied.

Death just tutted him "there are other ways of doing that Harry. My wand is currently in ownership of you. All you would have had to do was call upon it and it would have been yours to command. You didn't have to go through the troubles you did to make this one." It said matter of factly.

There was silence.

"Neville! Why don't you tell me how it is that you two found yourselves here?" He asked. "I don't ask twice."

Neville looked to his captain who nodded his approval.

Time went by as Neville began explaining to the figure that called itself Death the story of why and how they ended up on Azkaban.

"Hmmm... what a tale, expertly told young Longbottom. As a reward, I would like to tend to both of your wounds." Death stated standing up, the two putting their wands between them. If Death could roll its eyes, it would have.

"If I was going to kill you, I would have done it when you could barely see into this chamber." They both saw the logic in it and decided to see where this guy was going with things, making sure to stay on their guard.

With a click of his fingers thin purple clouds emerged from the ground encasing the two, unable to utter sounds; when the clouds went away, they found themselves no longer in any pain, and feeling better than they had in almost several years.

"There, I have rejuvenated you along with healing your wounds. You two, are very welcome."

The captain and the Lieutenant shared a look before moving forward, aiming their wands at the figure that called itself Death.

"Alright, out with it. Who are you? And where are we, really?" The captain asked, his eyes narrowing, barely concealing the sparks of green that came from underneath.

The figure cackled and clapped his hands, all three chairs vanishing from view, medieval torches growing from the walls and setting themselves alight, shining light into the room. Death growing in size.

"I am Death. This is my death chamber. I had lived among the wizard kind around the age of the Peverell brothers. I had helped in their creation of what is now known as the Hallows. They were tools that were supposed to allow someone to someday succeed me. After I was satisfied with the tools, I decided to create a life among the living. I faked my own death and the whatnot after I had lived a questionable amount of time- but a wizard named Ekrizdis had collected a sample of my magic, and when he had finished his construction of Azkaban, he summoned and bound me to this chamber. Forcing me to stay among the living."

"When be summoned me, that is when Dementors came into the world, born of the black and dark magic of my home and the summoning ritual which he used to bind me here."

"I had sensed the vacancy of the prison some time ago, but was unable to do much about it. All my power existed primarily in this room. I then noticed the distinct combination of wand ingredients and thus summoned it to me. Bringing you down here. I wasn't shocked to find that it wasn't my wand, but I was deeply saddened that you weren't some dark wizard that I knew I could consume and try to posses to finally leave this place. But oh well, I get you two instead." Death summarised for them.

As the two faced the creature of Death, the Captain's mind was unknowingly wondering to that of his comrades. His friends.

To Hermione, who had famously endorsed the idea of fully falling into Captain Black, leaving Harry Potter behind. To Daphne who had taught him the heats of the heart. To Draco who had shown him the kind of power will and loyalty truly have on a person. To Sherlock and John, to Fred and George, to Luna and Fleur... and to the man standing right beside him. Neville had been through it all with him. He was there from the very start, he stood by his side through all the troubles, the amount that he alone had suffered at the expense of winning the battles they endured.

sigh.

The air around them flashed cold, drawing the captain out of his wandering thoughts.

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
